Beloved Parishioners,

I wish to conclude the reflection started last week on the missionary mandate of Christ. Pope Leo XIV’s message for World Mission Sunday 2025 renews the Church’s call to mission in the light of the Jubilee Year of Hope (Iubilaeum 2025).

In his apostolic exhortation and accompanying video message, Pope Leo exhorts every Catholic parish in the world to take part in World Mission Sunday. Drawing from his personal missionary experience in Peru, he calls all the faithful to become “missionaries of hope among the peoples.” He reminds us that our baptismal call to mission is not merely about proclamation, but about transformation— offering hope where poverty, distance, or persecution hinder the Gospel’s reach.

This message aligns beautifully with the spirit of the Jubilee, whose theme invites us to be pilgrims of hope. To live missionally in this Year of Hope is to carry light into places of darkness, to plant seeds of faith where the soil seems barren, and to trust that even our smallest acts of love and witness contribute to the coming of God’s Kingdom. This light of faith we are called to carry to dark places becomes more profound as we begin a new liturgical year today.

But what does it mean to be a witness today? In his landmark exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, Pope St. Paul VI wrote: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (§41). True witness, then, is not just about words, it is about life. The early Christians understood this well, for martyr literally means witness. To bear witness is to live Christ in truth, humility, and love, even when it costs us comfort or acceptance.

Dear brothers and sisters, the world today does not need eloquent arguments as much as it needs credible Christians—men and women whose lives transparently reflect the Gospel. This is the kind of witness that transformed empires, converted hearts, and built the Church. As Ad Gentes (no. 11) puts it: “The Church must be present and operative among all the nations of the earth in such a way that it may lead all to faith, freedom, and peace in Christ.”

In this Year of Hope, our mission is to show that hope is not an idea—it has a face, and that face is Jesus Christ. His Incarnation reveals that God has not abandoned His creation. His Resurrection assures us that love is stronger than death. And His Spirit empowers us to continue His mission through the witness of our daily lives.

Every Christian can be a missionary of hope. When you comfort the sorrowful, you proclaim Christ the Consoler. When you forgive, you reflect the mercy of the Cross. When you work for justice, you reveal the reign of God’s Kingdom. When you pray for the missions or support them financially, you participate directly in the Church’s universal mission.

Let us therefore renew our missionary zeal in this Jubilee Year of Hope and more so as we begin a new liturgical year. Let us support the Church’s mission with our prayers, our resources, and our witnesses. And above all, let us allow the Holy Spirit to make us instruments of hope—to the very ends of the earth. For when we live as true witnesses, the world will come to see that Christ is still alive, still sending, and still saving.

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